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KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


BY ©tVAN TURGENEYV 





LITTUER LEATHER LIBRARY 
CORPORATION NEW YORK 





KASSYAN OF FAIR 
SPRINGS 


I was returning from hunting in a jolting lit- 
tle trap, and overcome by the stifling heat of 
a cloudy summer day (it is well known that 
the heat is often-more insupportable on such 
days than in bright days, especially when 
there is no wind), I dozed and was shaken 
about, resigning myself with sullen fortitude 
to being persecuted by the fine white dust 
which was incessantly raised from the beaten 
road by the warped and creaking wheels, 
when suddenly my attention was aroused by 
the extraordinary uneasiness and agitated 
movements of my coachman, who had till that 
instant been more soundly dozing than I. He 
began tugging at the reins, moved uneasily 
on the box, and started shouting to the 
horses, staring all the while in one direction. 
I looked round. We were driving through 
a wide ploughed plain; low hills, also 
ploughed over, ran in gently sloping, swell- 
ing waves over it; the eye took in some five 
miles of deserted country; in the distance 


4 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


the round-scolloped tree-tops of some small 
birch copses were the only objects to break 
the almost straight line of the horizon. Nar- 
row paths ran over the fields, disappeared 
into the hollows, and wound round the hillocks. 
On one of these paths, which happened to 
run into our road five hundred paces ahead 
of us, I made out a kind of procession. At 
this my coachman was looking. 

It was a funeral. In front, in a little cart 
harnessed with one horse, and advancing at a 
walking pace, came the priest; beside him 
sat the deacon driving; behind the cart four 
peasants, bareheaded, carried the coffin, cov- 
ered with a white cloth; two women followed 
the coffin. The shrill wailing voice of one of 
them suddenly reached my ears; I listened; 
she was intoning a dirge. Very dismal sound- 
ed this chanted, monotonous, hopelessly-sor- 
rowful lament among the empty fields. The 
coachman whipped up the horses; he wanted 
to get in front of this procession. To meet 
a corpse on the road is a bad omen. And he 
did succeed in galloping ahead beyond this 
path before the funeral had had time to turn 
out of it into the high-road; but we had 
hardly got a hundred paces beyond this point, 
when suddenly our trap jolted violently, | 


“ 


| 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 5 


heeled on one side, and all but overturned. 
The coachman pulled up the galloping horses, 
and spat with a gesture of his hand, 

“What is it?” I asked. 

My coachman got down without speaking 
or hurrying himself, 

“But what is it?” 

“The axle is broken... it caught fire,” he 
replied gloomily, and he suddenly arranged 
the collar on the off-side horse with such in- 
dignation that it was almost pushed over, but 
it stood its ground, snorted, shook itself, and 
tranquilly began to scratch its foreleg below 
the knee with its teeth. 

I got out and stood for some time on the 
road, a prey to a vague and unpleasant feel- 
ing of helplessness. ‘The right wheel was 
almost completely bent in under the trap, and 
it seemed to turn its centre-piece upwards in 
dumb despair. 

“What are we to do now?” I said at last. 

“That’s what’s the cause of it!” said my 
coachman, pointing with his whip to the 
funeral procession, which had just turned 
into the highroad and was approaching us. 
“{ have always noticed that,” he went on; 
HES a true Sein a corpse’—yes, in- 

eed.” 


6 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


And again he began worrying the off-side 
horse, who, seeing his ill-humour, resolved to 
remain perfectly quiet, and contented itself 
with discreetly switching its tail now and 
then. I walked up and down a little while, 
and then stopped again before the wheel. 

Meanwhile the funeral had come up to us, 
Quietly turning off the road on to the grass, 
the mournful procession moved slowly past 
us. My coachman and I took off our caps, 
saluted the priest, and exchanged glances 
with the bearers. They moved with difficulty 
under their burden, their broad chests stand- 
ing out under the strain. Of the two women 
who followed the coffin, one was very old and 
pale; her set face, terribly distorted as it 
was by grief, still kept an expression of grave 
and severe dignity. She walked in silence, 
from time to time lifting her wasted hand 
to her thin drawn lips. ‘The other, a young 
woman of five-and-twenty, had her eyes red 
and moist and her whole face swollen with 
weeping; as she passed us she ceased wail- 
ing, and hid her face in her sleeve... . 
But when the funeral had got round us and 
turned again into the road, her piteous, heart- 
piercing lament began again. My coachman 
followed the measured swaying of the coffin 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 7 


with his eyes in silence. Then he turned to 
me. 

“It’s Martin, the carpenter, they’re bury- 
ing,” he said; “Martin of Ryaby.” 

“How do you know?” 

~“T know by the women. The old one is his 
mother, and the young one’s his wife.” 

“Has he been ill, then?” 

“Yes .. . fever. The day before yester- 
day the overseer sent for the doctor, but they 
did not find the doctor at-home. He was a 
good carpenter; he drank a bit, but he was a 
good carpenter. See how upset his good 
woman is. . . . But, there; women’s tears 
don’t cost much, we know. Women’s tears 
are only water . . . yes, indeed.” 

And he bent down, crept under the side- 
horse’s trace, and seized the wooden yoke 
that passes over the horses’ heads with both 
hands. 

“Any way,” I observed, “what are we going 
to do?” 

My coachman just supported himself with 
his knees on the shaft-horse’s shoulder, twice 
gave the back-strap a shake, and straightened 
the pad; then he crept out of the side-horse’s © 
trace again, and giving it a blow on the nose 
as he passed, went up to the wheel. He went 


8 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


up to it, and, never. taking his eyes off it, 
slowly took out of the skirts of his coat a 
box, slowly pulled open its lid by a strap, 
slowly thrust into it his two fat fingers (which 
pretty well filled it up), rolled and rolled 
up some snuff, and creasing up his nose in 
anticipation, helped himself to it several times 
in succession, accompanying the snuff-taking 
every time by a prolonged sneezing. Then, his 
streaming eyes blinking faintly, he relapsed 
into profound meditation, 

“Well?” I said at last. 

My coachman thrust his box carefully into 
his pocket, brought his hat forward on to his 
brows without the aid of his hand by a move- 
ment of his head, and gloomily got up on the 
box. 

“What are you doing?” I asked him, some- 
what bewildered. 

“Pray be seated,” he replied calmly, en | 
ing up the reins. 

“But how can we go on?” 

“We will go on now.” 

“But the axle.” 

“Pray be seated.” 

“But the axle is broken.” 

“It is broken; but we will get to the settle 
ment . a « at a walking pace, of course. 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 9 


Over here, beyond the copse, on the right, is 
a settlement; they call it Yudino.” 

“And do you think we can get there?” 

My coachman did not vouchsafe me a reply. 
* “T had better walk,” I said. 

“As you like...” And he flourished his 
whip. The horses started. 
’ We did succeed in getting to the settle- 
ment, though the right front wheel was almost 
off, and turned in a very strange way. On 
one hillock it almost flew off, but my coach- 
man shouted in a voice of exasperation, and 
we descended it in safety. 
- Yudino settlement consisted of six little 
low-pitched huts, the walls of which had 
already begun to warp out of the perpendicu- 
lar, though they had certainly not been long 
built; the back-yards of some of the huts 
were not even fenced in with a hedge. As we 
drove into this settlement we did not meet 
a single living soul; there were no hens even 
to be seen in the street, and no dogs, but one 
black crop-tailed cur, which at our approach 
leaped hurriedly out of a perfectly dry and 
empty trough, to which it must have been 
driven by thirst, and at once, without barking, 
‘rushed headlong under a gate. I went up to, 
the first hut, opened the door into the outer 


10 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


room, and called for the master of the house. 
No one answered me. I called once more; the 
hungry mewing of a cat sounded behind the 
other door. I pushed it open with my foot; 
a thin cat ran up and down near me, her 
green eyes glittering in the dark. I put my 
head into the room and looked round; it was 
empty, dark, and smoky. I returned to the 
yard, and there was no one there either... . 
A calf lowed behind the paling; a lame grey 
goose waddled a little away. I passed on to 
the second hut. Not a soul in the second hut 
either. I went into the yard... . 

In the very middle of the yard, in the glar- 
ing sunlight, there lay, with his face on the 
ground and a cloak thrown over his head, 
a boy, as it seemed to me. In a thatched 
shed a few paces from him a thin little nag 
with broken harness was standing near a 
wretched little cart. The sunshine falling in 
streaks through the narrow cracks in the 
dilapidated roof, striped his shaggy, reddish- 
brown coat in small bands of light. Above, 
in the high bird-house, starlings were chat- 
tering and looking down inquisitively from 
their airy home. I went up to the sleeping 
figure and began to awaken him. 

He lifted his head, saw me, and at once 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 11 


jumped up on to his feet. . . . “What? what 
do you want? what is it?” he muttered, half 
asleep. 

I did not answer him at once; I was so 
much impressed by his appearance. 

Picture to yourself a little creature of fifty 
years old, with a little round wrinkled face, 
a sharp nose, little, scarcely visible, brown 
eyes, and thick curly black hair, which stood 
out on his tiny head like the cap on the top 
of a mushroom. His whole person was ex- 
cessively thin and weakly, and it is abso- 
lutely impossible to translate into words the 
extraordinary strangeness of his expression. 

“What do you want?” he asked me again. 
I explained to him what was the matter; he 
listened, slowly blinking, without taking his 
eyes off me. 

“So cannot we get a new axle?” I said 
finally; “I will gladly pay for it.” 

“But who are you? Hunters, eh?” he 
isked, scanning me from head to foot. 

“Hunters.” 

“You shoot the fowls of heaven, I suppose? 
, . « the wild things of the woods? .. . 
And is it not a sin to kill God’s birds, to shed 
che innocent blood?” 

_ The strange old man spoke in a very drawl- 


12 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


ing tone. The sound of his voice also aston- 
ished me. ‘There was none of the weakness 
of age to be heard in it; it was marvellously 
sweet, young and almost "feminine in its man 
ness. 

“I have no axle,” he added after a brief 
silence. “That thing will not suit you.” He 

ointed to his cart. “You have, I expect, a 
arge trap.” : 

“But can I get one in the village?” 

“Not much of a village here! . . . No one 
has an axle here. . . . And there is no one 
at home either ; they are all at work. You 
must go on,” he announced suddenly; and ne 
lay down again on the ground. 

I had not at all expected this conclusion. 

“Listen, old man,” I said, touching him on 
the shoulder; “do me a kindness, help me.” 

“Go on, in God’s name! I am tired; I have 
driven into the town,” he said, and drew his 
cloak over his head. 

“But pray do me a kindness,” I bald, me | 
- » » I will pay fora 

“T don’t want your money.” 

“But please, old man.” 

He half raised himself and sat up, cross- 
ing his little legs. 


“I could take you perhaps to the clearing. 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 13 


Some merchants have bought the forest here 
—God be their judge! They are cutting 
down the forest, and they have built a count- 
ing-house there—God be their judge! You 
might order an axle of them there, or buy 
one ready made.” 

“Splendid!” I cried delighted; “splendid! 
let us go.” i 

“An oak axle, a good one,” he continued, 
not getting up from his place. 

“And is it far to this clearing?” | 

“Three miles.” 

“Come, then! we can drive there in your 
trap.” 

OS BO. wa 

“Come, let us go,” I said; “let us go, old 
man! ‘The coachman is waiting for us in 
the road.” 

The old man rose unwillingly and followed 
me into the street. We found my coachman 
in an irritable frame of mind; he had tried 
to water his horses, but the water in the well, 
it appeared, was scanty in quantity and bad 
in taste, and water is the first consideration 
with coachmen. . . . However, he grinned 
at the sight of the old man, nodded his head 
and cried: “Hallo! Kassyanushka! good 
health to you!” 


14 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


“Good health to you, Erofay, upright man!” 
replied Kassyan in a dejected voice. 

I at once made known his suggestion to 
the coachman; Erofay expressed his approval 
of it and drove into the yard. While he was 
busy deliberately unharnessing the horses, the 
old man stood leaning with his shoulders 
against the gate, and looking disconsolately 
first at him and then atme. He seemed in some 
uncertainty of mind; he was not very pleased, 
as it seemed to me, at our sudden visit. 

“So they have transported you too?” Erofay 
asked him suddenly, lifting the wooden arch 
of the harness. 

“Ves, 39 

“Ugh!” said my coachman between his 
teeth. “You know Martin the carpenter. 

. Of course, you know Martin of Ryaby?” 

" Yes. ” 

“Weil, he is dead. We have just met his 
coffin.” Kassyan shuddered. 

“Dead?” he said, and his head sank de- 
jectedly. 

“Yes, he is dead. Why didn’t you cure 
him, eh? You know they say you cure folks; 
you’re a doctor.” 

My coachman was apparently laughing and 
jeering at the old man. 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 15 


“And is this your trap, pray?” he added, 
with a shrug of his shoulders in its direction. 

“Yes.” 

“Well, a trap . . . a fine trap!” he re- 
peated, and taking it by the shafts almost 
turned it completely upside down. “A trap! 
- . » But what will you drive in it to the 
clearing? . . . You can’t harness our horses 
in these shafts; our horses are all too big.” 

“J don’t know,” replied Kassyan, “what 
you are going to drive; that beast perhaps,” 
he added with a sigh. 

“That?” broke in Erofay, and going up to 
Kassyan’s nag, he tapped it disparagingly on 
the back with the third finger of his right 
hand. “See,” he added. contemptuously, “it’s 
asleep, the scarecrow!” 

I asked Erofay to harness it as quickly as 
he could. I wanted to drive myself with 
Kassyan to the clearing; grouse are fond of 
such places. When the little cart was quite 
-ready, and I, together with my dog, had been 
installed in the warped wicker body of it, and 
Kassyan huddled up into a little ball, with 
still the same dejected expression on his face, 
had taken his seat in front, Erofay came up 
to me and whispered with an air of mystery: 

“You did well, your honour, to drive with 


16 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


him. He is such a queer fellow; he’s cracked, 
you know, and his nickname is the Flea. 
I don’t know how you managed to make him 
out. 

I tried to say to Erofay that so far Kass- 
yan had seemed to me a very sensible man; 
but my coachman continued at once in the 
same voice: 

“But you keep a look-out where he is wari 
ing you to. And, your honour, be pleased to 
choose the axle yourself ; be pleased to choose 
a sound one. . . . Well, Flea,’ he added 
aloud, “could I get a bit of bread in your 
house?” 

“Look about; you may find some,” answered 
Kassyan. He pulled the reins and we rolled 
away. 

His little horse, to my genuine astonish- 
ment, did not go badly. Kassyan preserved 
an obstinate silence the whole way, and made 
abrupt and unwilling answers to my questions, — 
We quickly reached the clearing, and then 
made our way to the counting-house, a lofty 
cottage, standing by itself over a small gully, 
which had been dammed up and converted 
into a pool. In this counting-house I found 
two young merchants’ clerks, with snow-white 
teeth, sweet and soft eyes, sweet and subtle 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 17 


words, and sweet and wily smiles. I bought 
an axle of them and returned to the clearing. 
I thought that Kassyan would stay with the 
horse and await my return; but he suddenly 
came up to me. 

“Are you going to shoot birds, eh?” he 


" §aids 


“Yes, if I come across any.” 

“YT will come with you.. . . Can I?” 

“Certainly, certainly.” 

So we went together. The land cleared was 
about a mile in length. I must confess I 
watched Kassyan more than my dogs. He 
had been aptly called “Flea.” His little black 
uncovered head (though his hair, indeed, was 
as good a covering as any cap) seemed to 
- flash hither and thither among the bushes. 
He walked extraordinarily swiftly, and 
seemed always hopping up and down as he 
moved; he was for ever stooping down to 
_ pick herbs of some kind, thrusting them into 
his bosom, muttering to himself, and con- 
stantly looking at me and my dog with such 
a strange searching gaze. Among low bushes 
and in clearings there are often little grey 
birds which constantly flit from tree to tree, 
and which whistle as they dart away. Kass- 
yan mimicked them, answered their calls; a 


18@ KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


young quail flew from between his feet, chir- 
ruping, and he chirruped in imitation of him; 
a lark began to fly down above him, moving 
his wings and singing melodiously: Kassyan 
joined in his song. He did not speak to me 
ata sok 

The weather was glorious, even more so 
than before; but the heat was no less. Over 
the clear sky the high thin clouds were hardly 
stirred, yellowish-white, like snow lying late 
in spring, flat and drawn out like rolled-up 
sails. Slowly but perceptibly their fringed 
edges, soft and fluffy as cotton-wool, changed 
at every moment; they were melting away, 
even these clouds, and no shadow fell from 
them. I strolled about the clearing for a 
long while with Kassyan. Young shoots, 
which had not yet had time to grow more 
than a yard high, surrounded the low black- 
ened stumps with their smooth slender stems; 
and spongy funguses with grey edges—the 
same of which they make tinder—clung to 
these; strawberry plants flung their rosy ten- 
drils over them; mushrooms squatted close in 
groups. The feet were constantly caught and 
entangled in the long grass, that was parched 
in the scorching sun; the eyes were dazzled 
on all sides by the glaring metallic glitter 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 19 


on the young reddish leaves of the trees; on 
all sides were the variegated blue clusters of 
vetch, the golden cups of bloodwort, and the 
half-lilac, half-yellow blossoms of the heart’s- 
ease. In some places near the disused paths, 
on which the tracks of wheels were marked 
by streaks on the fine bright grass, rose piles 
of wood, blackened by wind and rain, laid in 
yard-lengths; there was a faint shadow cast 
from them in slanting oblongs; there was no 
other shade anywhere. A light breeze rose, 
then sank again; suddenly it would blow 
straight in the face and seem to be rising; 
everything would begin to rustle merrily, to 
nod, to shake around one; the supple tops of 
the ferns bow down gracefully, and one re- 
joices in it, but at once it dies away again, 
and all is at rest once more. Only the grass- 
hoppers chirrup in chorus with frenzied 
energy, and wearisome is this unceasing, 
sharp dry sound. It is in keeping with the 
persistent heat of mid-day; it seems akin to 
it, as though evoked by it out of the glowing 
earth. 

Without having started one single covey we 
at last reached another clearing. ‘There the 
aspentrees had only lately been felled, and 
lay stretched mournfully on the ground, 


20 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


crushing the grass and small undergrowth 
below them: on some the leaves were still 
green, though they were already dead, and 
hung limply from the motionless branches; on 
others they were crumpled and dried up. 
Fresh golden-white chips lay in heaps round 
the stumps that were covered with bright 
drops; a peculiar, very pleasant, pungent 
odour rose from them. Farther away, nearer 
the wood, sounded the dull blows of the axe, 
and from time to time, bowing and spreading 
wide its arms, a bushy tree fell slowly and 
majestically to the ground. 

For a long time I did not come upon a 
single bird; at last a corncrake flew out of a 
thick clump of young oak across the worm- 
wood springing up round it. I fired; it 
turned over in the air and fell. At the sound 
of the shot, Kassyan quickly covered his eyes 
with his hand, and he did not stir till I had 
reloaded the gun and picked up the bird. 
When I had moved farther on, he went up 
to the place where the wounded bird had 
fallen, bent down to the grass, on which some 
_ drops of blood were sprinkled, shook his head, 
and looked in dismay at me. . . . I heard 
him afterwards whispering: “A sin! .. . Ah, 
yes, it’s a sin!” ) 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS sa 


The heat forced us at last to go into the 
wood. I flung myself down under a high 
nut-bush, over which a slender young maple 
gracefully stretched its light branches. Kass- 
yan sat down on the thick trunk of a felled 
birch-tree. I looked at him. The leaves 
faintly stirred overhead, and their thin green- 
ish shadows crept softly to and fro over his 
feeble body, muffled in a dark coat, and over 
his little face. He did not lift his head. 
Bored by his silence, I lay on my back and 
began to admire the tranquil play of the 
tangled foliage on the background of the 
bright, far away sky. A marvellously sweet 
occupation it is to lie on one’s back in a wood 
and gaze upwards! You may fancy you are 
looking into a bottomless sea; that it stretches 
wide below you; that the trees are not rising 
out of the earth, but, like the roots of gigan- 
tic weeds, are dropping—falling straight 
down into those glassy, limpid depths; the 
leaves on the trees are at one moment trans- 
parent as emeralds, the next, they condense 
into golden, almost black green, Somewhere, 
afar off, at the end of a slender twig, a sin- 
gle leaf hangs motionless against the blue 
patch of transparent sky, and beside it an- 
other trembles with the motion of a fish on 


22 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


the line, as though moving of its own will, 
not shaken by the wind. Round white clouds 
float calmly across, and calmly pass away like 
submarine islands; and suddenly, all this 
ocean, this shining ether, these branches and 
leaves steeped in sunlight—all is rippling, 
quivering in fleeting brilliance, and a fresh 
trembling whisper awakens like the tiny, in- 
cessant plash of suddenly stirred eddies. One 
does net move—one looks, and no word can 
tell what peace, what joy, what sweetness 
reigns in the heart. One looks: the deep, 
pure blue stirs on one’s lips a smile, innocent 
as itself; like the clouds over the sky, and, 
as it were, with them, happy memories pass 
in slow procession over the soul, and still one 
fancies one’s gaze goes deeper and deeper, 
and draws one with it up into that peaceful, 
shining immensity, and that one cannot 
be brought back from that height, that 
GEDLN. 6)» % 

“Master, master!” cried Kassyan suddenly 
in his musical voice. 

I raised myself in surprise: up till then 
he had scarcely replied to my questions, 
ang now he suddenly addressed me of him- 
self. 

“What is it?” I asked. 


-KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 22 


“What did you kill the bird for?” he be- 
gan, looking me straight in the face. 

“What for? Corncrake is game; one can 
eat it.” ¥ 

“That was not what you killed it for, mas- 
ter, as though you were going to eat it! You 
killed it for amusement.” 

“Well, you yourself, I suppose, ate geese 
or chickens?” 

“Those birds are provided by God for man, 
but the corncrake is a wild bird of the woods: 
and not he alone; many they are, the wild 
things of the woods and the fields, and the 
wild things of the rivers and marshes and 
moors, flying on high or creeping below; and 
a sin it is to slay them: let them live their 
allotted life upon the earth. But for man 
another food has been provided; his food is 
_ other, and other his sustenance: bread, the 
good gift of God, and the water of heaven, 
and the tame beasts that have come down to 
us from our fathers of old.” 

I looked in astonishment at Kassyan. His 
words flowed freely; he did not hesitate for 
a word; he spoke with quiet inspiration and 
gentle dignity, sometimes closing his eyes. 

“So is it sinful, then, to kil! fish, accord- 
ing to you?” I asked. 


24° KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


“Fishes have cold blood,” he replied with 
conviction. “The fish is a dumb creature; it 
knows neither fear nor rejoicing. The fish 
is a voiceless creature. ‘The fish does not feel; 
the blood in it is not living. . . . Blood,” he 
continued, after a pause, “blood is a holy 
thing! God’s sun does not look upon blood; 
it is hidden away from the light . . . it is 
a great sin to bring blood into the light of 
day; a great sin and horror, . .. Ah, a 
great sin!” 

He sighed, and his head drooped forward. 
I looked, I confess, in absolute amazement at 
the strange old man. His language did not 
sound like the language of a peasant; the. 
common people do not speak like that, nor 
those who aim at fine speaking. His speech 
was meditative, grave, and curious. , .. I 
had never heard anything like it. 

“Tell me, please, Kassyan,” I began, with- 
out taking my eyes off his slightly flushed 
face, “what is your occupation?” 

He did not answer my question at once. 
His eyes strayed uneasily for an instant. 

“T live as the Lord commands,” he brought 
out at last; “and as for occupation—no, I 
have no occupation. I’ve never been very 
clever from a child: I work when I can: ’'m 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 28 


not much of a workman—how should I be? 
I have no health; my hands are awkward. In 
the spring I catch nightingales.” 

“You catch nightingales? . . . But didn’t 
you tell me that we must not touch any of 
the wild things of the woods and the fields, 
and so on?” 

“We must not kill them, of a certainty; 
death will take its own without that. Look 
at Martin the carpenter; Martin lived, and 
his wife was not long, but he died; his wife 
now grieves for her husband, for her little 
children. . . . Neither for man nor beast is 
there any charm against death. Death does 
not hasten, nor is there any escaping it; but 
we must not aid death. . . . And I do not 
kill nightingales—God forbid! I do not catch 
them to harm them, to spoil their lives, but 
for the pleasure of men, for their comfort 
and delight.” 

“Do you go to Kursk to catch them?” 

“Yes, I go to Kursk, and farther too, at 
times. I pass nights in the marshes, or at 
the edge of the forests; I am alone at night 
in the fields, in the thickets; there the curlews 
call and the hares squeak and the wild ducks 
lift up their voices. . . . I note them at even- 
ing; at morning I give ear to them; at day- 


#6 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


break I cast my net over the bushes. . . 
There are nightingales that sing so pitifully 
sweet . . . yea, pitifully.” 

“And do you sell them?” 

“T give them to good people.” 

“And what are you doing now?” 

“What am I doing?” 

“Yes, how are you employed?” 

The old man was silent for a little. 

“T am not employed at all. . ..ITama 
poor workman. But I can read and write.” 

“You can read?” 

“Yes, I can read and write. I learnt, by 
the help of God and good people.” 

“Have you a family?” 

“No, not a family.” 

“How so? . . . Are they dead, then?” 

“No, but . . . I have never been lucky in 
life. But all that is in God’s hands; we are 
all in God’s hands; and a man should be 
righteous—that is all! Upright before God, 
that is it.” 

“And you have no kindred?” 

SLOS ips. Well. take 
*, The old man was confused. 

“Tell me, please,’ I began: “I heard my 
coachman ask you why you did not cure 
Martin? You cure disease?” 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 27 


“Your coachman is a righteous man,” Kass- 
yan answered thoughtfully. “I too am not 
without sin. They call me a doctor... . Me 
a doctor, indeed! And who can heal the sick? 
That is all a gift from God. But there are 

. yes, there are herbs, and there are flow- 
ers; they are of use, of a certainty. There is 
plantain, for instance, a herb good for man; 
there is bud-marigold too; it is not sinful to 
speak of them: they are holy herbs of God. 
Then there are others not so; and they may 
be of use, but it’s a sin; and to speak of them 
is a sin. Still, with prayer, may be... . 
And doubtless there are such words. . . 
But who has faith, shall be saved,” he added, 
dropping his voice. 

“You did not give Martin anything?” I 
asked. 

“T heard of it too late,” replied the old 
man. “But what of it! Each man’s destiny 
is written from his birth. The carpenter 
Martin was not to live; he was not to live 
‘upon the earth: that was what it was. No, 
when a man is not to live on the earth, him 
the sunshine does not warm like anether, and 
him the bread does not nourish and make 
strong; it is as though something is drawing 
him away. . . . Yes: God rest his soul!” 


28 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


“Have you been settled long amongst us?” 
I asked him after a short pause. 

Kassyan started. 

“No, not long; four years. In the old 
master’s time we always lived in our old 
‘houses, but the trustees transported us. Our 
‘old master was a kind heart, a man of peace 
-—the Kingdom of Heaven be his! The trus- 
‘tees doubtless judged righteously.” 

“And where did you live before?” 

“At Fair Springs.” 

“Ts it far from here?” 

“A hundred miles.” 

“Well, were you better off there?” 

“Yes . . . yes, there there was open coun- 


try, with rivers; it was our home: here we- 


are cramped and parched up. . . . Here we 
are strangers. ‘There at home, at Fair 
Springs, you could get up on to a hill—and 
ah, my God, what a sight you could see! 
Streams and plains and forests, and there was 
a church, and then came plains beyond. You 
could see far, very far. Yes, how far you 
could look—you could look and look, ah, 
yes! Here, doubtless, the soil is better; it is 
clay—good fat clay, as the peasants say; 
for me the corn growg well enough every- 
where.” | 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 29 


“Confess then, old man; you would like 
., to visit your birth-place again?” 

“Yes, I should like to see it. Still, all 
places are good. I am a man without kin, 
without neighbours. And, after all, do you 
gain much, pray, by staying at home? But, 
behold! as you walk, and as you walk,” he 
went on, raising his voice, “the heart grows 
lighter, of a truth. And the sun shines upon 
you, and you are in the sight of God, and the 
singing comes more tunefully. Here, you 
look—what herb is growing; you look on it— 
you pick it. Here water runs, perhaps— 
spring water, a source of pure holy water; 
so you drink of it—you look on it too. The 
birds of heaven sing. . . . And beyond Kursk 
come the steppes, that steppes-country: ah, 
what a marvel, what a delight for man! what 
freedom, what a blessing of God! And they 
go on, folks tell, even to the warm seas where 
dwells the sweet-voiced bird, the Hamayune, 
and from the trees the leaves fall not, neither 
in autumn nor in winter, and apples grow of 
gold, on silver branches, and every man lives 
in uprightness and content. And I would go 
even there. . . . Have I journeyed so little 
already! I have been to Romyon and to 
Simbirsk the fair city, and even to Moscow 


30 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


of the golden domes; I have been to Oka 
the good nurse, and to Tsna the dove, and to~ 
our mother Volga, and many folks, coh 
Christians have I seen, and noble cities I 
have visited. . . . Well, I would go thither 
ie L VeR eg and more too. . . and I am 
not the only one, I a poor sinner . . . many 
other Christians go in bast-shoes, roaming 
over the world, seeking truth, yea! . .. For 
what is there at home? No righteousness in 
man—it’s that.” 

These last words Kassyan uttered quickly, 
almost unintelligibly; then he said something 
more which I could not catch at all, and such 
a strange expression passed over his face that 
I involuntarily recalled the epithet “cracked.” 
He looked down, cleared his throat, and 
seemed to come to himself again. 


“What sunshine!” he murmured in a Jow | 


voice. “It is a blessing, oh, Lord! What 
warmth in the woods!” 

He gave a movement of the shoulders and 
fell into silence. With a vague look round 
him he began softly to sing. I could not catch 
all the words of his slow chant; JI heard the 
following: 


“They call me Kassyan, 
But my nickname’s the Flea.” 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 31 


“Oh!” I thought, “so he improvises.” Sud- 
enly he started and ceased singing, looking 
intently at a thick part of the wood. I 
turned and saw a little peasant girl, about 
seven years old, in a blue frock, with a 
checked handkerchief over her head, and a 
woven bark-basket in her little bare sun- 
burnt hand. She had certainly not expected 
to meet us; she had, as they say, “stumbled 
upon” us, and she stood motionless in a shady 
recess among the thick foliage of the nut- 
trees, looking dismayed at me with her black 
eyes. I had scarcely time to catch a glimpse 
of her; she dived behind a tree. 
“Annushka! Annushka! come here, don’t 
be afraid!” cried the old man caressingly. 
“I’m afraid,” came her shrill voice. 
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid; come to 
me.” 
- Annushka left her hiding place in silence, 
walked softly round—her little childish feet 
scarcely sounded on the thick grass—and 
came out of the bushes near the old man. 
She was not a child of seven, as I had fancied 
at first, from her diminutive stature, but a 
girl of thirteen or fourteen. Her whole per- 
son was small and thin, but very neat and 
graceful, and her pretty little face was strik- 


32 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


ingly like Kassyan’s own, though he was cer- 
tainly not handsome. There were the same 
thin features, and the same strange expres- . 
sion, shy and confiding, melancholy and 
shrewd, and her gestures were the same. . . 

Kassyan kept his eyes fixed on her; she took 
her stand at his side. 

“Well, have you picked any mushrooms?” 
he asked. 

“Yes,” she answered with a shy smile. 

“Did you find many?” 

“Yes.” (She stole a swift look at him and 
smiled again.) 

“Are they white ones?” 

“Ves.” 

“Show me, show me. . . . (She slipped the 
basket off her arm and half-lifted the big 
burdock leaf which covered up the mush- 
rooms.) “Ah!” said Kassyan, bending down 
over the basket; “what splendid ones! Well 
done, Annushka!” 

“She’s your daughter, Kassyan, isn’t she?” 
! asked. (Annushka’s face flushed faint- 
Fe) o, well, a relative,” replied Kassyan with 
affected indifference. “Come, Annushka, run 
along,” he added at. once, “run along, and 
God be with you! And take care.” 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS = 33 


“But why should she go on foot?” I inter- 
rupted. “We could take her with us.” 

’  Annushka blushed like a poppy, grasped 
the handle of her basket with both hands, 
and looked in trepidation at the old man. 

“No, she will get there all right,” he an- 
“swered in the same languid and indifferent 
voice. “Why not? . . . She will get there. 

. Run along.” 

Annushka went rapidly away into the for- 
est. Kassyan looked after her, then looked 
down and smiled to himself. In this pro- 
longed smile, in the few words he had spoken 
to Annushka, and in the very sound of his 
voice when he spoke to her, there was an 
intense, indescribable love and tenderness. 
He looked again in the direction she had 
gone, again smiled to himself, and, passing 
his hand across his face, he nodded his head 
several times. 

“Why did you send her away so soon?” I 
asked him. “I would have bought her mush- 
rooms.” 

“Well, you can buy them there at home 
just the same, sir, if you like,” he answered, 
for the first time using the formal “sir” in 
addressing me. 

“She’s very pretty, your girl.” 


34 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


“No .. . only so-so,” he answered, with - 
seeming reluctance, and from that instant 
he relapsed into the same uncommunicative 
mood as at first. i 

Seeing that all my efforts to make him talk . 
again were fruitless, I went off into the clear- 
ing. Meantime the heat had somewhat - 
abated; but my ill-success, or, as they say 
among us, my “ill-luck,’ continued, and I 
returned to the settlement with nothing but 
one corncrake and the new axle. Just as we 
were driving into the yard, Kassyan sud- 
denly turned to me. : 

“Master, master,” he began, “do you know 
I have done you a wrong; it was I cast a 
spell to keep all the game off.” 

“How so?” 

“Oh, I can do that. Here you have a well- 
trained dog and a good one, but he could do 
nothing. When you think of it, what are 
men? what are they? MHere’s a beast; what 
have they made of him?” 

It would have been useless for me to try to . 
convince Kassyan of the impossibility of ” 
“casting a spell” on game, and so I made him 
no reply. Meantime we had turned into the 

ard. 

: Annushka was not in the hut: she had had > 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 35 


time to get there before us, and to leave her 
basket of mushrooms. LErofay fitted in the 
new axle, first exposing it to a severe and 
most unjust criticism; and an hour later I 
set off, leaving a small sum of money with 
Kassyan, which at first he was unwilling to 
accept, but afterwards, after a moment’s 
thought, holding it in his hand, he put it in 
his bosom. In the course of this hour he 
nad scarcely uttered a single word; he stood 
as before, leaning against the gate. He made 
n0 reply to the reproaches of my coachman, 
and took leave very coldly of me. 

Directly I turned round, I could see that 
ny worthy Erofay was in a gloomy frame of 
nind. . . . To be sure, he had found nothing 
70 eat in the country; the only water for 
uis horses was bad. We drove off. With 
lissatisfaction expressed even in the back of 
1is head, he sat on the box, burning to begin 
0 talk to me. While waiting for me to begin 
yy some question, he confined himself to a 
ow muttering in an undertone, and some 
‘ather caustic instructions to the horses. “A 
rillage,” he muttered; “call that a village? 
You ask for a drop of kvas—not a drop of 
vas even. . . . Ah, Lord! . . . And the 
vater—simply filth!’ (He spat loudly.) 


36 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


“Not a cucumber, nor kvas, nor nothing... « 
Now, then!” he added aloud, turning to the 
right trace-horse; “I know you, you humbug.” 
(And he gave him a cut with the whip.) 
“That horse has learnt to shirk his work en- 
tirely, and yet he was a willing beast once. 
Now, then—look alive!” 

“Tell me, please, Erofay,” I began, “what 
sort of a man is Kassyan?” 

Erofay did not answer me at once: he was, 
in general, a reflective and deliberate fellow; 
but I could see directly that my question was 
soothing and cheering to him. 

“The Flea?” he said at last, gathering up 
the reins; “he’s a queer fellow; yes, a crazy 
chap; such a queer fellow, you wouldn’t find 
another like him in a hurry. You know, for 
example, he’s for all the world like our roan 
horse here; he gets out of everything—out 
of work, that’s to say. But, then, what sort 
of workman could he be? . . . He’s hardly 
body enough to keep his soul in . . . but 
still, of course. . . . He’s been like that 
from a child up, you know. At first he fol- 
lowed his uncle’s business as a carrier—there 
were three of them in the business; but then 
he got tired of it, you know—he threw it up, 
He began to live at home, but he could not 


KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS = 37 


keep at home long; he’s so restless—a regular 
flea, in fact. He happened, by good luck, 
to have a good master—he didn’t worry him. 
Well, so ever since he has been wandering 
about like a lost sheep. And then, he’s so 
strange; there no understanding him. Some- 
times he'll be as silent as a post, and then 
he'll begin talking, and God knows what he’ll 
say! Is that good manners, pray? He’s an 
absurd fellow, that he is. But he sings well, 
for all that.” 

“And does he cure people, really?” 

“Cure people! . . . Well, how should he? 
A fine sort of doctor! ‘Though he did cure 
me of the king’s evil, I must own. . . . But 
how can he? He’s a stupid fellow, that’s 
what he is,” he added, after a moment’s 
pause. 

“Have you known him long?” 

“A Jong while. I was his neighbour at 
Sitchovka up at Fair Springs.” 

“And what of that girl—who met us in the 
wood, Annushka—what relation is she to 
him ?” . 

Erofay looked at me over his shoulder, and 
grinned all over his face. 

“He, he! . . . yes, they are relations. She 
is an orphan; she has no mother, and it’s not 


38 KASSYAN OF FAIR SPRINGS 


even known who her mother was. But she 
must be a relation; she’s too much like him. 
. . . Anyway, she lives with him. She’s a 
smart girl, there’s no denying; a good girl; 
and as for the old man, she’s simply the apple 
of his eye; she’s a good girl. And, do you 
know, you wouldn’t believe it, but do you 
know, he’s managed to teach Annushka to 
read? Well, well! that’s quite like him; he’s 
such an extraordinary fellow, such a change- 
able fellow; there’s no reckoning on him, 
really. . . . Eh! eh! eh!” My coachman 
suddenly interrupted himself, and stopping 
the horses, he bent over on one side and be- 
gan sniffing. “Isn’t there a smell of burn- 
ing? Yes! Why, that new axle, I do de- 
clare! . . . I thought I’'d greased it... 
We must get on to some water; why, here is 
a puddle, just right.” 

And Erofay slowly got off his seat, untied 
the pail, went to the pool, and coming back, 
listened with a certain satisfaction to the hiss- 
ing of the box of the wheel as the water sud- 
denly touched it. . . . Six times during some 
eight miles he had to pour water on the 
smouldering axle, and it was quite evening 
when we got home at last. 





MUMU 


In one of the outlying streets of Moscow, in 
a grey house with white columns and a bal- 
cony, warped all askew, there was once liv- 
ing a lady, a widow, surrounded by a numer- 
ous household of serfs. Her sons were in 
the government service at Petersburg; her 
daughters were married; she went out very 
little, and in solitude lived through the last 
years of her miserly and dreary old age. 
Her day, a joyless and gloomy day, had long 
been over; but the evening of her life was 
blacker than night. 

Of all her servants, the most remarkable 
personage was the porter, Gerasim, a man 
full twelve inches over the normal height, of 
heroic build, and deaf and dumb from his 
birth. The lady, his owner, had brought him 
up from the village where he lived alone in a 
little hut, apart from his brothers, and was 
‘reckoned about the most punctual of her 
peasants in the payment of the seignorial 
dues. Endowed with extraordinary strength, 


40 MUMU 


he did the work of four men; work flew 
apace under his hands, and it was a pleasant 
sight to see him when he was ploughing, while, 
with his huge palms pressing hard upon the 
plough, he seemed alone, unaided by his poor 
horse, to cleave the yielding bosom of the 
earth, or when, about St. Peter’s Day, he 
plied his scythe with a furious energy that 
might have mown a young birch copse up by 
the roots, or swiftly and untiringly wielded 
a flail over two yards long; while the hard 
oblong muscles of his shoulders rose and fell 
like a lever. His perpetual silence lent a 
solemn dignity to his unwearying labour. He 
was a splendid peasant, and, except for his 
affliction, any girl would have been glad to 
marry him.... But now they had taken 
Gerasim to Moscow, bought him boots, had 
him made a full-skirted coat for summer, a 
sheepskin for winter, put into his hand a 
broom and a spade, and appointed him por- 
ter. 

At first he intensely disliked his new mode 
of life. From his childhood he had been 
used to field labour, to village life. Shut off 
by his affliction from the society of men, he 
had grown up, dumb and mighty, as a tree 
grows on a fruitful soil. When he was trans- 


MUMU . 41 


ported to the town, he could not understand 
what was being done with him; he was mis- 
erable and stupefied, with the stupefaction 
of some strong young bull, taken straight 
from the meadow, where the rich grass stood 
up to his belly, taken and put in the truck 
of a railway train, and there, while smoke 
and sparks and gusts of steam puff out upon 
the sturdy beast, he is whirled onwards, 
whirled along with loud roar and whistle, 
whither—God knows! What Gerasim had to 
do in his new duties seemed a mere trifle to 
him after his hard toil as a peasant; in half- 
an-hour, all his work was done, and he would 
once more stand stock-still in the middle of 
the courtyard, staring open-mouthed at all 
the passers-by, as though trying to wrest 
from them the explanation of his perplexing 
position; or he would suddenly go off into 
some corner, and flinging a long way off the 
broom or the spade, throw himself on his 
face on the ground, and lie for hours to- 
gether without stirring, like a caged beast. 
But man gets used to anything, and Gerasim 
got used at last to living in town. He had 
little work to do; his whole duty consisted 
in keeping the courtyard clean, bringing in a 
barrel of water twice a day, splitting and 


42 MUMU 


dragging in wood for the kitchen and the 
house, keeping out strangers, and watching at 
night. And it must be said he did his duty 
zealously. In his courtyard there was never 
a shaving lying about, never a speck of dust; 
if sometimes, in the muddy season, the 
wretched nag, put under his charge for fetch- 
ing water, got stuck in the road, he would 
simply give it a shove with his shoulder, and 
set not only the cart but the horse itself 
moving. If he set to chopping wood, the 
axe fairly rang like glass, and chips and 
chunks flew in all directions. And as for 
strangers, after he had one night caught two 
thieves and knocked their heads together— 
knocked them so that there was not the 
slightest need to take them to the police- 
station afterwards—every one in the neigh- 
bourhood began to feel a great respect for 
him; even those who came in the day-time, by 
no means robbers, but simply unknown per- 
sons, at the sight of the terrible porter 
waved and shouted to him as though he could 
hear their shouts. With all the rest of the 
servants, Gerasim was on terms, hardly 
friendly—they were afraid of him—but fa- 
miliar; he regarded them as his fellows. They 
explained themselves to him by signs, and he 


MUMU 43 


understood them, and exactly carried out all 
orders, but knew his own rights too, and 
soon no one dared to take his seat at the 
table. Gerasim was altogether of a strict 
and serious temper, he liked order in every- 
thing; even the cocks did not dare to fight 
in his presence, or woe betide them! directly 
he caught sight of them, he would seize them 
by the legs, swing them ten times round in 
the air like a wheel, and throw them in dif- 
ferent directions. There were geese, too, 
kept in the yard; but the goose, as is well 
known, is a dignified and reasonable bird; 
Gerasim felt a respect for them, looked after 
them, and fed them; he was himself not un- 
like a gander of the steppes. He was as- 
Signed a little garret over the kitchen; he 
arranged it himself to his own liking, made 
a bedstead in it of oak boards on four stumps 
of wood for legs—a truly Titanic bedstead; 
one might have put a ton or two on it—it 
would not have bent under the load; under 
the bed was a solid chest; in a corner stood a 
little table of the same strong kind, and near 
the table a three-legged stool, so solid and 
squat that Gerasim himself would sometimes 
pick it up and drop it again with a smile of 
delight. The garret was locked up by means 


Ad, MUMU 


of a padlock that looked like a kalatch or 
basket-shaped loaf, only black; the key of 
this padlock Gerasim always carried about 
him in his girdle. He did not like people to 
come to his garret. 

So passed a year, at the end of which a 
little incident befell Gerasim. 

The old lady, in whose service he lived as 
porter, adhered in everything to the ancient 
ways, and kept a large number of servants. 
In her house were not only laundresses, 
sempstresses, carpenters, tailors and _ tailor- 
esses, there was even a _ harness-maker—he 
was reckoned as a veterinary surgeon, too,— 
and a doctor for the servants; there was 
a household doctor for the mistress; there was, 
lastly, a shoemaker, by name Kapiton Kli- 
mov, a sad drunkard. Klimov regarded him- 
self as an injured creature, whose merits 
were unappreciated, a cultivated man from 
Petersburg, who ought not to be living in 
Moscow without occupation—in the wilds, so 
to speak; and if he drank, as he himself 
expressed it emphatically, with a blow on 
his chest, it was sorrow drove him to it. So 
one day his mistress had a conversation about 
him with her head steward, Gavrila, a man 
whom, judging solely from his little yellow 


MUMU Ad 


eyes and nose like a duck’s beak, fate itself, 
it seemed, had marked out as a person in 
authority. The lady expressed her regret at 
the corruption of the morals of Kapiton, who 
had, only the evening before, been picked up 
somewhere in the street. 

“Now, Gavrila,” she observed, all of a 
sudden, “now, if we were to marry him, what 
do you think, perhaps he would be steadier?” 

“Why not marry him, indeed, ’m? He 
could be married, ’m,” answered Gavrila, 
“and it would be a very good thing, to be 
sure, ’m.” i 

“Yes; only who is to marry him?” 

“Ay, ’m. But that’s at your pleasure, ’m. 
He may, any way, so to say, be wanted for 
something; he can’t be turned adrift alto- 
gether.” 

“IT fancy he likes Tatiana.” 

Gavrila was on the point of making some 
reply, but he shut his lips tightly. 

“Yes! ...let him marry Tatiana,” the 
lady decided, taking a pinch of snuff com- 
placently. “Do you hear?” 

“Yes, ‘m,’ Gavrila articulated, and he 
withdrew. 

Returning to his own room (it was in a 
little lodge, and was-almost filled up with 


46 MUMU 


metal-bound trunks), Gavrila first sent his 
wife away, and then sat down at the window 
and pondered, His mistress’s unexpected ar- 
rangement had clearly put him in a diffi- 
culty. At last he got up and sent to call 
Kapiton. Kapiton made his appearance. ... 
But before reporting their conversation to 
the reader, we consider it not out of place to 
relate in few words who was this Tatiana, 
whom it was to be Kapiton’s lot to marry, 
and why the great lady’s order had disturbed 
the steward. 

Tatiana, one of the laundresses referred 
to above (as a trained and skilful laundress 
she was in charge of the fine linen only), was 
a woman of twenty-eight, thin, fair-haired, 
with moles on her left cheek. Moles on the 
left cheek are regarded as of evil omen in 
Russia—a token of unhappy life.... Tati- 
ana could not boast of her good luck. From 
her earliest youth she had been badly treated; 
she had done the work of two, and had never 
known affection; she had been poorly clothed 
and had received the smallest wages. Rela- 
tions she had practically none; an uncle she 
had once had, a butler, left behind in the 
country as useless, and other uncles of hers 
were peasants—that was all. At one time 


MUMU 47 


she had passed for a beauty, but her good 
looks were very soon over. In disposition, 
she was very meek, or, rather, scared; to- 
wards herself, she felt perfect indifference; 
of others, she stood in mortal dread; she 
thought of nothing but how to get her work 
done in good time, never talked to any one, 
and trembled at the very name of her mis- 
tress, though the latter scarcely knew her 
by sight. When Gerasim was brought from 
the country, she was ready to die with fear 
on seeing his huge figure, tried all she could 
to avoid meeting him, even dropped her eye- 
lids when sometimes she chanced to run past 
him, hurrying from the house to the laundry. 
Gerasim at first paid no special attention to 
her, then he used to smile when she came his 
way, then he began even to stare admiringly 
at her, and at last he never took his eyes 
off her. She took his fancy, whether by the 
mild expression of her face or the timidity 
of her movements, who can tell? So one 
day she was stealing across the yard, with 
a starched dressing-jacket of her mistress’s 
carefully poised on her outspread fingers 

.. some one suddenly grasped her vigor- 
ously by the elbow; she turned round and 
fairly screamed; behind her stood Gerasim. 


48 MUMU 


With a foolish smile, making inarticulate ca- 
ressing grunts, he held out to her a ginger- 
bread cock with gold tinsel on his tail and 
wings. She was about to refuse it, but he 
thrust it forcibly into her hand, shook his 
head, walked away, and turning round, once 
more grunted something very affectionately 
to her. From that day forward he gave her 
no peace; wherever she went, he was on the 
spot at ence, coming to meet her, smiling, 
grunting, waving his hands; all at once he 
would pull a ribbon out of the bosom of his 
smock and put it in her hand, or would 
sweep the dust out of her way. The poor 
girl simply did not know how to behave or 
what to do. Soon the whole household knew 
of the dumb porter’s wiles; jeers, jokes, sly 
hints were showered upon Tatiana. At Ge- 
rasim, however, it was not every one who- 
would dare to scoff; he did not like jokes; 
indeed, in his presence, she, too, was left in 
peace. Whether she liked it or not, the girl 
found herself to be under his protection. 
Like all deaf-mutes, he was very suspicious, 
and very readily perceived when they were 
laughing at him or at her. One day, at din- 
ner, the wardrobe-keeper, Tatiana’s superior, 
fell to nagging, as it is called, at her, and 


MUMU 49 


brought the poor thing to such a state that 
she did not know where to look, and was al- 
most crying with vexation. Gerasim got up 
all of a sudden, stretched out his gigantic 
hand, laid it on the wardrobe-maid’s head, 
and looked into her face -with such grim 
ferocity that her head positively flopped upon 
the table. Every one was still. Gerasim 
took up his spoon again and went on with 
‘his cabbage-soup. “Look at him, the dumb 
‘devil, the wood-demon!” they all muttered 
in under-tones, while the wardrobe-maid got 
up and went out into the maids’ room. An- 
other time, noticing that Kapiton—the same 
Kapiton who was the subject of the conver- 
sation reported above—was gossiping some- 
what too attentively with Tatiana, Gerasim 
beckoned him to him, led him into the cart- 
shed, and taking up a shaft that was stand- 
_ ing in a corner by one end, lightly, but most 
significantly, menaced him with it. Since 
then no one addressed a word to Tatiana. 
And all this cost him nothing. It is true 
the wardrobe-maid, as soon as she reached 
the maids’ room, promptly fell into a faint- 
ing-fit, and behaved altogether so skilfully 
that Gerasim’s rough action reached his mis- 
tress’s knowledge the same day. But the 


50 MUMU 


eapricious old lady only laughed, and sey- 
eral times, to the great offence of the ward- 
robe-maid, forced her to repeat “how he 
bent your head down with his heavy hand,” 
and next day she sent Gerasim a rouble. She 
looked on him with favour as a strong and 
faithful watchman. Gerasim stood in consid- 
erable awe of her, but, all the same, he had 
hopes of her favour, and was preparing to 
go to her with a petition for leave to marry 
Tatiana. He was only waiting for a new 
coat, promised him by the steward, to pre-- 
sent a proper appearance before his mis- 
tress, when this same mistress suddenly took 
it into her head to marry Tatiana to Kapi- 
ton. 

The reader will now readily understand 
the perturbation of mind that overtook the 
steward Gavrila after his conversation with 
his mistress. “My lady,” he thought, as he 
sat at the window, “favours Gerasim, to be 
sure”—(Gavrila was well aware of this, and 
that was why he himself looked on him with 
an indulgent eye)—“still he is a speechless 
creature. I could not, indeed, put it before 
the mistress that Gerasim’s courting Tatiana. 
But, after all, it’s true enough; he’s a queer 
sort of husband. But on the other hand, that 


MUMU 51 


devil, God forgive me, has only got to find 
out they’re marrying Tatiana to Kapiton, 
he'll smash up everything in the house, ’pon 
my soul! ‘There’s no reasoning with him; 
why, he’s such a devil, God forgive my sins, 
there’s no getting over him no how... ’pon 
my soul!” 

Kapiton’s entrance broke the thread of 
Gavrila’s reflections. The dissipated shoe- 
maker came in, his hands behind him, and 
lounging carelessly against a projecting an- 
gle of the wall, near the door, crossed his 
right foot in front of his left, and tossed his 
head, as much as to say, “What do you 
want?” 

Gavrila looked at Kapiton, and drummed 
with his fingers on the window-frame. Kapi- 
ton merely screwed up his leaden eyes a lit- 
tle, but he did not look down, he even grinned 
slightly, and passed his hand over his whit- 
ish locks which were sticking up in all direc- 
tions. “Well, here I am. What is it?” 

“You’re a pretty fellow,” said Gavrila, and 
paused. “A pretty fellow you are, there’s 
no denying!” 

Kapiton only twitched his little shoulders. 
“Are you any better, pray?” he thought to 
himself, 


52 MUMU 


“Just look at yourself, now, look at your- 
self,’ Gavrila went on reproachfully; “now, 
what ever do you look like?” 

Kapiton serenely surveyed his shabby tat- 
tered coat, and his patched trousers, and 
with specia] attention stared at his burst 
boots, especially the one on the tip-toe of 
which his right foot so gracefully poised, and 
he fixed his eyes again on the steward. 

“Well?” 

“Well?” repeated Gavrila. “Well? And 
then you say well? You look like old Nick 
himself, God forgive my saying so, that’s 
what you look like.” 

Kapiton blinked rapidly. 

“Go on abusing me, go on, if you like, 
Gavrila Andreitch,’ he thought to himself 
again. 

“Here you’ve been drunk again,” Gavrila 
began, “drunk again, haven’t you? Eh? 
Come, answer me!” 

“Owing to the weakness of my health, I 
have exposed myself to spirituous beverages, 
certainly,” replied Kapiton. 

“Owing to the weakness of your health! 
... They Jet you off too easy, that’s what 
it is; and you’ve been apprenticed in Peters- 
teure. 2, Much you learned in your ap- 


MUMU 53 


prenticeship! You simply eat your bread in 
idleness.” 

“In that matter, Gavrila Andreitch, there 
is one to judge me, the Lord God Himself, 
and no one else. He also knows what man- 
ner of man [ be in this world, and whether 
I eat my bread in idleness. And as concern- 
ing your contention regarding drunkenness, 
in that matter, too, I am not to blame, but 
rather a friend; he led me into temptation, 
but was diplomatic and got away, while 
Linn? 

“While you were left, like a goose, in the 
street. Ah, you’re a dissolute fellow! But 
that’s not the point,” the steward went on, 
“ve something to tell you. Our lady...” 
here he paused a minute, “it’s our lady’s 
pleasure that you should be married. Do 
you hear? She imagines you may be steadier 
when you’re married. Do you understand?” 

“To be sure I do.” 

“Well, then. For my part I think it would 
be better to give you a good hiding. But 
there—it’s her business. Well? are you 
agreeable?” 

Kapiton grinned. 

“Matrimony is an excellent thing for any 


54 ~MUMU 


ene, Gavrila Andreitch; and, as far as I am 
concerned, I shall be quite agreeable.” 

“Very well, then,” replied Gavrila, while 
he reflected to himself: “there’s no denying 
the man expresses himself very properly. 
Only there’s one thing,” he pursued aloud: 
“the wife our lady’s picked out for you is 
an unlucky choice.” 

“Why, who is she, permit me to inquire?” 

“Tatiana.” 

“Tatiana?” 

And Kapiton opened his eyes, and moved 
a little away from the wall. 

“Well, what are you in such a taking for? 
. .. Isn’t she to your taste, hey?” 

“Not to my taste, do you say, Gavrila An- 
dreitch? She’s right enough, a hard-working 
steady girl.... But you know very well 
ourself, Gavrila Andreitch, why that fel- 
ow, that wild man of the woods, that mon- 
ster of the steppes, he’s after her, you 
EHOW. Vee” 

“IT know, mate, I know all about it,” the 
butler cut him short in a tone of annoyance: 
“but there, you see.. .” 

“But upon my soul, Gavrila Andreitch! 
why, he'll kill me, by God, he will, he’ll crush 
me like some fly; why, he’s got a fist—why, 


MUMU 55 


you kindly look yourself what a fist he’s gots 
why, he’s simply got a fist like Minin Pozhar- 
sky’s. You see he’s deaf, he beats and does 
not hear how he’s beating! He swings. his 
great fists, as if he’s asleep. And there’s no 
possibility of pacifying him; and for why? 
Why, because, as you know yourself, Gavrila 
Andreitch, he’s deaf, and what’s more, has 
no more wit than the heel of my foot. Why, 
he’s a sort of beast, a heathen idol, Gavrila 
Andreitch, and worse ...a block of wood; 
what have I done that I should have to suffer 
from him now? Sure it is, it’s all over with 
me now; I’ve knocked about, I’ve had enough 
to put up with, I’ve been battered like an 
earthenware pot, but still I’m a man, after 
all, and not a worthless pot.” 

“T know, I know, don’t go talking 
AWAY: 0 a, 

“Lord, my God!” the shoemaker continued 
warmly, “when is the end? when, O Lord! 
A poor wretch I am, a poor wretch whose 
sufferings are endless! What a life, what a 
life mine’s been, come to think of it! In 
my young days, I was beaten by a German 
I was ’prentice to; in the prime of life beat- 
en by my own countrymen, and last of all, 


56 MUMU 


in ripe years, see what I have been brought 
tases” 

“Ugh, you flabby soul!” said Gavrila 
Andreitch, “Why do you make so many 
words about it?” 

“Why, do you say, Gavrila Andreitch? It’s 
not a beating I’m afraid of, Gavrila An- 
dreitch. A gentleman may chastise me in 
private, but give me a civil word before folks, 
and I’m a man still; but see now, whom I’ve 
to do with... .” 
~ “Come, get along,” Gavrila interposed im- 
patiently. Kapiton turned away and stag- 
gered off. 

“But, if it were not for him,” the steward 
shouted after him, “you would consent for 
your part?” 

“I signify my acquiescence,” retorted Kap- 
iton as he disappeared. 

His fine language did not desert him, even 
in the most trying positions. 

The steward walked several times up and 
down the room. 

“Well, call. Tatiana now,” he said at last. 

A few instants later, Tatiana had come up 
almost noiselessly, and was standing in the 
doorway. 


MUMU ; 37 


“What are your orders, Gavrila An- 
dreitch?” she said in a soft voice. 

The steward looked at her intently. 

“Well, Taniusha,” he said, “would you like 
to be married? Our lady has chosen a hus- 
band for you.” 

“Yes, Gavrila Andreitch. And whom has 
she deigned to name as a husband for me?” 
she added falteringly. 

“Kapiton, the shoemaker.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“He’s a feather-brained fellow, that’s cer- 
tain. But its just for that the mistress 
reckons upon you.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“There’s one difficulty ... you know the 
_ deaf man, Gerasim, he’s courting you, you 
see. How did you come to bewitch such a 
bear? But you see, he'll kill you, very like, 
he’s such a bear... 

“He'll kill me, Georrilis Andreitch, he’ll kill 
me, and no mistake.” ; 

“Kill you. ... Well, we shall see about 
that. What do you mean by saying he'll 
kill you? Has he any right to kill you? tell 
me yourself.” 

“JT don’t know, Gavrila Andreitch, about 
his having any right or not.” 


58 MUMU 


“What a woman! why, you’ve made him no 
promise, I suppose... .” 

“What are you pleased to ask of me?” 

The steward was silent for a little, think- 
ing, “Youre a meek soul! Well, that’s 
right,’ he said aloud; “well have another 
talk with you later, now you can go, Taniu- 
sha; I see you’re not unruly, certainly.” 

Tatiana turned, steadied herself a little 
against the doorpost, and went away. 

“And, perhaps, our lady will forget all 
about this wedding by to-morrow,” thought 
the steward; “and here am I worrying my- 
self for nothing! As for that insolent fel- 
low, we must tie him down, if it comes to 
that, we must let the police know... .” “Us- 
tinya Fyedorovna!” he shouted in a loud 
voice to his wife, “heat the samovar, my good 
soul....” All that day Tatiana hardly 
went out of the laundry. At first she had 
started crying, then she wiped away her tears, 
and set to work as before. Kapiton stayed 
till late at night at the ginshop with a friend 
of his, a man of gloomy appearance, to whom 
he related in detail how he used to live in 
Petersburg with a gentleman, who would 
have been all right, except he was a bit too 
strict, and he had a slight weakness besides, 


MUMU 59 


he was too fond of drink; and, as to the fair 
sex, he didn’t stick at anything. His gloomy 
companion merely said yes; but when Kapi- 
ton announced at last that, in a certain 
event, he would have to lay hands on himself 
to-morrow, his gloomy companion remarked 
that it was bedtime. And they parted in 
surly silence. 

Meanwhile, the stewarca’s anticipations 
were not fulfilled. The old lady was so much 
taken up with the idea of Kapiton’s wedding, 
that. even in the night she talked of nothing 
else to one of her companions, who was kept 
in her house solely to entertain her in case of 
sleeplessness, and, like a night cabman, slept 
in the day. When Gavrila came to her after 
morning: tea with his report, her first ques- 
tion was: “And, how about our wedding—is 
it getting on all right?’ He replied, of 
course, that it was getting on first rate, and 
that Kapiton would appear before her to 
pay his reverence to her that day. The old 
lady was not quite well; she did not give 
‘much time to business. The steward went 
back to his own room, and called a council. 
The matter certainly called for serious con- 
sideration. Tatiana would make no diffi- 
culty, of course; but Kapiton had declared 


60 MUMU 


in the hearing of all that he had but one 
head to lose, not two or three. ... Gerasim 
turned rapid sullen looks on every one, would 
not budge from the steps of the maids’ quar- 
ters, and seemed to guess that some mischief 
was being hatched against him. They met 
together. Among them was an old sideboard 
waiter, nicknamed Uncle Tail, to whom eve 

one looked respectfully for counsel, though 
all they got out of him was, “Here’s a pretty 
pass! to be sure, to be sure, to be sure!” 
As a preliminary measure of security, to pro- 
vide against contingencies, they locked Kap- 
iton up in the lumber-room where the filter 
was kept; then considered the question with 
the gravest deliberation. It would, to be 
sure, be easy to have recourse to force. But 
Heaven save us! there would be an uproar, 
the mistress would be put out—it would be 
awful! What should they do? They thought 
and thought, and at last thought out a solu- 
tion. It had many a time been observed 
that Gerasim could not bear drunkards... . 
As he sat at the gates, he would always turn 
away with disgust when some one passed by 
intoxicated, with unsteady steps and his cap 
on one side of his ear. They resolved that 
Tatiana should be instructed to pretend to 


MUMU 61 


be tipsy, and should pass by Gerasim stag- 
gering and reeling about. The poor girl re- 
fused for a long while to agree to this, but 
they persuaded her at last; she saw, too, that 
it was the only possible way of getting rid 
of her adorer. She went out. Kapiton was 
released from the lumber-room; for, after 
all, he had an interest in the affair. Gerasim 
was sitting on the curb-stone at the gates, 
scraping the ground with a spade. ... From 
behind every corner, from behind every win- 
dow-blind, the others were watching him... . 
The trick succeeded beyond all expectations. 
On seeing Tatiana, at first, he nodded as 
usual, making caressing, inarticulate sounds; 
then he looked carefully at her, dropped his 
spade, jumped up, went up to her, brought 
his face close to her face. ... In her fright 
she staggered more than ever, and shut her 
eyes... . He took her by the arm, whirled 
her right across the yard, and going into the 
room where the council had been sitting, 
pushed her straight at Kapiton. Tatiana 
fairly swooned away... . Gerasim stood, 
looked at her, waved his hand, laughed, and 
went off, stepping heavily, to his garret.... 
For the next twenty-four hours, he did not 
come out of it. The postillion Antipka said 


62 MUMU 


afterwards that he saw Gerasim through a 
crack in the wall, sitting on his bedstead, 
his face in his hand. From time to time he 
uttered soft regular sounds; he was wailing 
a dirge, that is, swaying backwards and for- 
wards with his eyes shut, and shaking his 
head as drivers or bargemen do when they 
chant their melancholy songs. Antipka could 
not bear it, and he came away from the 
crack. When Gerasim came out of the gar- 
ret next day, no particular change could be 
observed in him. He only seemed, as it were, 
more morose, and took not the slightest no- 
tice of Tatiana or Kapiton. The same eve- 
ning, they both had to appear before their 
mistress with geese under their arms, and in 
a week’s time they were married. Even on 
the day of the wedding Gerasim showed no 
change of any sort in ‘his behaviour. Only, 
he came back from the river without water, 


he had somehow broken the barrel on the |. 


road; and at night, in the stable, he washed 
and rubbed down his horse so vigorously, that 
it swayed like a blade of grass in the wind, 
and staggered from one leg to the other ~ 
under his fists of iron. 

All this had taken place in the spring. 
Another year passed by, during which Kapi- 


MUMU 63 


ton became a hopeless drunkard, and as be- 
ing absolutely of no use for anything, was 
sent away with the store waggons to a dis- 
tant village with his wife. On the day of his 
departure, he put a very good face on it at 
first, and declared that he would always be 
at home, send him where they would, even 
to the other end of the world; but later on 
he lost heart, began grumbling that he was 
being taken to uneducated people, and col- 
lapsed so completely at last that he could 
not even put his own hat on. Some charita~ 
ble soul stuck it on his forehead, set the 
peak straight in front, and thrust it on with 
a slap from above. When everything was 
quite ready, and the peasants already held 
the reins in their hands, and were only wait- 
ing for the words “With God’s blessing!” to 
start, Gerasim came out of his garret, went 
up to Tatiana, and gave her as a parting 
present a red cotton handkerchief he had 
bought for her a year ago. ‘Tatiana, who 
had up to that instant borne all the revolt- 
ing details of her life with great indiffer- 
ence, could not control herself upon that; 
she burst into tears, and-as she took her seat 
in the cart, she kissed Gerasim three times 
like a good Christian. He meant to accom- 


64 MUMU 


pany her as far as the town-barrier, and did 
walk beside her cart for a while, but he 
stopped suddenly at the Crimean ford, waved 
his hand, and walked away along the river- 
side. 

It was getting towards evening. He 
walked slowly, watching the water. All of a 
sudden he fancied something was floundering 
in the mud close to the bank. He stooped 
over, and saw a little white-and-black puppy, 
who, in spite of all its efforts, could not get 
out of the water; it was struggling, slipping 
back, and trembling all over its thin wet little 
body. Gerasim looked at the unlucky little 
dog, picked it up with one hand, put it into 
the bosom of his coat, and hurried with long 
steps homewards. He went into his garret, 
put the rescued puppy on his bed, covered it 
with his thick overcoat, ran first to the stable 
for straw, and then to the kitchen for a cup 
of milk. Carefully folding back the overcoat, 
and spreading out the straw, he set the milk 
on the bedstead. The poor little puppy was 
not more than three weeks old, its eyes’ were 
only just open—one eye still seemed rather 
larger than the other; it did not know how to 
lap out of a cup, and did nothing but shiver 
and blink. Gerasim took hold of its head 


MUMU 65 


softly with two fingers, and dipped its little 
nose into the milk. The pup suddenly began 
lapping greedily, sniffing, shaking itself, and 
choking. Gerasim watched and watched it, 
and all at once he laughed outright... . All 
night long he was waiting on it, keeping it 
covered, and rubbing it dry. He fell asleep 
himself at last, and slept quietly and happily 
by its side. 

No mother could have looked after her 
baby as Gerasim looked after his little nurs- 
ling. At first, she—for the pup turned out 
to be a bitch—was very weak, feeble, and | 
ugly, but by degrees she grew stronger and 
improved in looks, and thanks to the unflag- 
ging care of her preserver, in eight months’ 
time she was transformed into a very pretty 
dog of the spaniel breed, with long ears, a 
bushy spiral tail, and large expressive eyes. 
She was devotedly attached to Gerasim, and 
was never a yard from his side; she always 
followed him. about wagging her tail. He 
had even given her a name—the dumb know 
that their inarticulate noises call the atten- 
tion of others. He called her Mumu. All 
the servants in the house liked her, and called 
her Mumu, too. She was very intelligent, 
she was friendly with every one, but was only 


66 MUMU 


fond of Gerasim. Gerasim, on his side, loved 
her passionately, and he did not like it when 
other people stroked her; whether he was 
afraid for her, or jealous—God knows! She 
used to wake him in the morning, pulling at 
his coat; she used to take the reins in her 
mouth, and bring him up the old horse that 
carried the water, with whom she was on very 
friendly terms. With a face of great impor- 
tance, she used to go with him to the river; 
she used to watch his brooms and spades, and 
never allowed any one to go into his garret. 
He cut a little hole in his door on purpose 
for her, and she seemed to feel that only in 
Gerasim’s garret she was completely mistress 
and at home; and directly she went in, she 
used to jump with a satisfied air upon the 
bed. At night she did not sleep at all, but 
she never barked without sufficient cause, 
like some stupid house-dog, who, sitting on 
its hind-legs, blinking, with its nose in the 
air, barks simply from dulness, at the stars, 
usually three times in succession. No! 
Mumu’s delicate little voice was never raised 
without good reason; either some stranger 
was passing close to the fence, or there was 
some suspicious sound or rustle somewhere. 
..- In fact, she was an excellent watch-dog. 


MUMU 67 


It is true that there was another dog in the 

ard, a tawny old dog with brown spots, 
-ealled Wolf, but he was never, even at night, 
let off the chain; and, indeed, he was so 
decrepit that he did not even wish for free- 
dom. He used to lie curled up in his ken- 
nel, and only rarely uttered a sleepy, almost 
noiseless bark, which broke off at once, as 
though he were himself aware of its useless- 
ness. Mumu never went into the mistress’s 
house; and when Gerasim carried wood into 
the rooms, she always stayed behind, impa- 
tiently waiting for him at the steps, pricking 
up her ears and turning her head to right 
and to left at the slightest creak of the 
door. ... 

So passed another year. Gerasim went on 
performing his duties as house-porter, and 
was very well content with his lot, when 
suddenly an unexpected incident occurred. 
. - . One fine summer day the old lady was 
walking up and down the drawing-room with 
her dependants. She was in high spirits; she 
laughed and made jokes. Her servile com- 
panions laughed and joked too, but they did 
not feel particularly mirthful; the household 
did not much like it, when their mistress was 
in a lively mood, for, to begin with, she ex- 


68 MUMU 


pected from every one prompt and complete 
participation in her merriment, and was furi-' 
ous if any one showed a face that did not 
beam with delight, and secondly, these out- 
bursts never lasted long with her, and were 
usually followed by a sour and gloomy mood. 
That day she had got up in a lucky hour; at 
cards she took the four knaves, which means 
the fulfilment of one’s wishes (she used to 
try her fortune on the cards every morn- 
ing), and her tea struck her as particularly 
delicious, for which her maid was rewarded 
by words of praise, and by twopence in 
money. With a sweet smile on her wrinkled 
lips, the lady walked about the drawing-room 
and went up to the window. A flower-garden 
had been laid out before the window, and 
in the very middle bed, under a rose-bush, 
lay Mumu busily gnawing a bone. The lady 
caught sight of her. 

“Mercy on us!” she cried suddenly; “what 
dog is that?” 

The companion, addressed by the old lady, 
hesitated, poor thing, in that wretched state 
of uneasiness which is common in any per- 
son in a dependent position who doesn’t know 
very well what significance to give to the ex- 
clamation of a superior. 


MUMU 69 


“IT d...d... don’t know,” she faltered: 
“I fancy it’s the dumb man’s dog.” : 

“Mercy!” the lady cut her short: “but it’s 
a charming little dog! order it to be brought 
in. Has he had it long? Hfow is it I’ve never 
seen it before? ... Order it to be brought 
in.” 

The companion fiew at once into the hall. 

“Boy, boy!” she shouted: “bring Mumu in 
at once! She’s in the flower-garden.” 

“Her name’s Mumu then,” observed the 
lady: “a very nice name.” 

“Oh, very, indeed!” chimed in the com- 
panion. “Make haste, Stepan!” 

Stepan, a _ sturdily-built young fellow, 
whose duties were those of a footman, rushed 
headlong into the flower-garden, and tried 
to capture Mumu, but she cleverly slipped 
from his fingers, and with her tail in the air, 
fled full speed to Gerasim, who was at that 
instant in the kitchen, knocking out and 
cleaning a barrel, turning it upside down in 
his hands like a child’s drum. Stepan ran 
after her, and tried to catch her just at 
‘her master’s feet; but the sensible dog would 
not let a stranger touch her, and with a 
ound, she got away. Gerasim looked on with 
i smile at all this ado; at last, Stepan got 


70 MUMU 


up, much amazed, and hurriedly explained to 
him by signs that the mistress wanted the 
dog brought in to her. Gerasim was a little 
astonished; he called Mumu, however, picked 
her up, and handed her over to Stepan. 
Stepan carried her into the drawing-room, 
and put her down on the parquette floor. The 
old lady began calling the dog to her in a 
coaxing voice. Mumu, who had never in her 
life been in such magnificent apartments, was 
very much frightened, and made a rush for 
the door, but, being driven back by the ob- 
sequious Stepan, she began trembling, and 
huddled close up against the wall. 

“Mumu, Mumu, come to me, come to your 
mistress,” said the lady; “come, silly thing 

. don’t be afraid.” 

“Come, Mumu, come to the mistress,” re- 
peated the companions. “Come along!” : 

But Mumu looked round her uneasily, and 
did not stir. 

“Bring her something to eat,” said the old 
lady. “How stupid she is! she won’t come to 
her mistress. What’s she afraid of?” 

“She’s not used to your honour yet,” ven- 
tured one of the companions in a timid and 
conciliatory voice. 

Stepan brought in a saucer of milk, and 


MUMU 71 


set it down before Mumu, but Mumu would 
not even sniff at the milk, and still shivered, 
and looked round as before. 

“Ah, what a silly you are!” said the lady, 
and going up to her, she stooped down, and 
was about to stroke her, but Mumu turned 
her head abruptly, and showed her teeth. 
The lady hurriedly drew back her hand.... 

A momentary silence followed. Mumu gave 
a faint whine, as though she would complain 
and apologise. ... The old lady moved back, 
scowling. The dog’s sudden movement had 
frightened her. 

“Ah!” shrieked all the companions at once, 
“she’s not bitten you, has she? Heaven for- 
bid! (Mumu had never bitten any one in her 
life.) Ah! ah!” 

“Take her away,” said the old lady in a 
changed voice. ‘Wretched little dog! What 
a spiteful creature!” 

And, turning round deliberately, she went 
towards her boudoir. Her companions looked 
timidly at one another, and were about to 
follow her, but she stopped, stared coldly at 
them, and said, “What’s that for, pray? I’ve 
not called you,” and went out. 

The companions waved their hands to 
Stepan in despair. He picked up Mumu, 


72 MUMU 


and flung her promptly outside the door, just 
at Gerasim’s feet, and half-an-hour later a 
profound. stillness reigned in the house, and 
the old lady sat on her sofa looking blacker 
than a thundercloud. 

What trifles, if you think of it, will some- 
times disturb any one! 

Till evening the lady was out of humour; 
she did not talk to any one, did not play 
cards, and passed a bad night. She fancied 
the eau-de-Cologne they gave her was not 
the same as she usually had, and that her pil- 
low smelt of soap, and she made the ward- 
robe-maid smell all the bed linen—in fact she 
was very upset and cross altogether. Next 
morning she ordered Gavrila to be summoned 
an hour earlier than usual. 

“Tell me, please,” she began, directly the 
latter, not without some inward trepidation, 
crossed the threshold of her boudoir, “what 
dog was that barking all night in our yard? 
It wouldn’t let me sleep!” 

‘SA dog, ’m.'.. what dog, ’m... may be, 
the dumb man’s dog, ’m,” he brought out in 
a rather unsteady voice. 

“¥ don’t know whether it was the dumb 
man’s or whose, but it wouldn’t let me sleep. 
And I wonder what we have such a lot of 


MUMU 78 


dogs for! I wish to know. We have a yard 
dog, haven’t we?” : 

“Oh, yes, ’m, we have, ’m. Wolf, ’m.” 

“Well, why more, what do we want more 
dogs for? It’s simply introducing disorder. 
There’s no one in control in the house—that’s 
what it is. And what does the dumb man 
want with a dog? Who gave him leave to 
keep dogs in my yard? Yesterday I went to 
the windows and there it was lying in the 
flower-garden; it had dragged in some nasti- 
ness it was gnawing, and my roses are planted 
there.’ 4:30" 

The lady ceased. 

“Let her be gone from to-day ... do you 
hear?” 

“y ‘es, *m.”? 

“To-day. Now go. I will send for you 
later for the report.” 

Gavrila went away. 

As he went through the drawing-room, the 
steward by way of maintaining order moved 
a bell from one table to another; he stealthily 
blew his duck-like nose in the hall, and went 
into the outer-hall. In the outer-hall, on a 
locker was Stepan asleep in the attitude of a 
slain warrior in a battalion picture, his bare 
legs thrust out below the coat which served 


74 MUMU 


him for a blanket. The steward gave him a 
shove, and whispered some instructions to 
him, to which Stepan responded with some- 
thing between a yawn and a laugh. The 
steward went away, and Stepan got up, put 
on his coat and his boots, went out and stood 
on the steps. Five minutes had not passed 
before Gerasim made his appearance with a 
huge bundle of hewn logs on his back, ac- 
companied by the inseparable Mumu. (The 
lady had given orders that her bedroom and 
boudoir should be heated at times even in 
the summer.) Gerasim turned sideways be- 
fore the door, shoved it open with his shoul- 
der, and staggered into the house with his 
load. Mumu, as usual, stayed behind to wait 
for him. Then Stepan, seizing his chance, 
suddenly pounced on her, like a kite on a 
chicken, held her down to the ground, gath- 
ered her up in his arms, and without even 
utting on his cap, ran out of the yard with 
er, got into the first fly he met, and gal- 
loped off to a market-place. There he soon 
found a purchaser, to whom he sold her for 
a shilling, on condition that he would keep 
her for at least a week tied up; then he re- 
turned at once. But before he got home, he 
got off the fly, and going right round the 


MUMU 75 


yard, jumped over the fence into the yard 
from a back street. He was afraid to go in 
at the gate for fear of meeting Gerasim. 

His anxiety was unnecessary, however; 
Gerasim was no longer in the yard. On 
coming out of the house he had at once 
missed Mumu. He never remembered her 
failing to wait for his return, and began run- 
ning up and down, looking for her, and call- 
ing her in his own way. ... He rushed up 
to his garret, up to the hay-loft, ran out into 
the street, this way and that.... She was 
lost! He turned to the other serfs, with the 
most despairing signs, questioned them about 
her, pointing to her height from the ground, 
describing her with his hands. ... Some of 
them really did not know what had become of 
Mumu, and merely shook their heads, others 
did know, and smiled to him for all response, 
while the steward assumed an important air, 
and began scolding the coachman. Then 
Gerasim ran right away out of the yard. 

It was dark by the time he came back. 
From his worn-out look, his unsteady walk, 
and his dusty clothes, it might be surmised 
that he had been running over half Moscow. 
He stood still opposite the windows of the 
mistress’s house, took a searching look at the 


76 MUMU 


steps where a group of house-serfs were 
crowded together, turned away, and uttered 
once more his inarticulate “Mumu.” Mumu 
did not answer. He went away. Every one 
looked after him, but no one smiled or said a 
word, and the inquisitive postillion Antipka 
reported next morning in the kitchen that 
the dumb man had been groaning all night. 
All the next day Gerasim did not show him- 
self, so that they were obliged to send the 
coachman Potap for water instead of him, at 
which the coachman Potap was anything but 
pleased. The lady asked Gavrila if her or- 
ders had been carried out. Gavrila replied 
that they had. The next morning Gerasim 
came out of his garret, and went about his 
work. He came in to his dinner, ate it, and 
went out again, without a greeting to any 
one. His face, which had always been life- 
less, as with all deaf-mutes, seemed now to 
be turned to stone. After dinner he went 
out of the yard again, but not for long; he 
came back, and went straight up to the hay- 
loft. Night came on, a clear moonlight night. 
Gerasim lay breathing heavily, and inces- 
santly turning from side to side. Suddenly 
he felt something pull at the skirt of his 
coat. He started, but did not raise his head, 


MUMU 17 


and even shut his eyes tighter. But. again 
there was a pull, stronger than before; he 
jumped up... before him, with an end of 
string round her neck, was Mumu, twisting 
and turning. <A prolonged cry of delight 
broke from his speechless breast; he caught 
up Mumu, and hugged her tight in his arms, 
she licked his nose and eyes, and beard and 
moustache, all in one instant. ... He stood 
a little, thought a minute, crept cautiously 
down from the hay-loft, looked round, and 
having satisfied himself that no one could see 
him, made his way successfully to his gar- 
ret. Gerasim had guessed before that his 
dog had not got lost by her own doing, that 
she must have been taken away by the mis- 
tress’s orders; the servants had explained to 
him by signs that his Mumu had snapped at 
her, and he determined to take his own meas- 
ures. First he fed Mumu with a bit of 
bread, fondled her, and put her to bed, then 
he fell to meditating, and spent the whole 
night long in meditating how he could best 
conceal her. At last he decided to leave her 
all day in the garret, and only to come in 
now and then to see her, and to take her out 
at night. The hole in the door he stopped up 
effectually with his old overcoat, and almost 


78 MUMU 


before it was light he was already in the 
yard, as though nothing had happened, even 
—innocent guile!—the same expression of 
melancholy on his face. It did not even oc- 
cur to the poor deaf man that Mumu would 
betray herself by her whining; in reality, 
every one in the house was soon aware that 
the dumb man’s dog had come back, and was 
locked up in his garret, but from sympathy 
with him and with her, and partly, perhaps, 
from dread of him, they did not let him know 
that they had found out his secret. The 
steward scratched his head, and gave a de- 
spairing wave of his hand, as much as to say, 
“Well, well, God have mercy on him! If 
only it doesn’t come to the mistress’s ears!” 
But the dumb man had never shown such 
energy as on that day; he cleaned and scraped 
the whole courtyard, pulled up every single 
weed with his own hand, tugged up every 
stake in the fence of the flower-garden, to 
satisfy himself that they were strong enough, 
and unaided drove them in again; in fact, he 
toiled and laboured so that even the old lady 
noticed his zeal. Twice in the course of the 
day Gerasim went stealthily in to see his 
prisoner; when night came on, he lay down 
to sleep with her in the garret, not in the 


MUMU 7 


hay-loft, and only at two o’clock in the night 
he went out to take her a turn in the fresh 
air. After. walking about the courtyard a 
good while with her, he was just turning 
back, when suddenly a rustle was heard be- 
hind the fence on the side of the back street. 
Mumu pricked up her ears, growled—went up 
to the fence, sniffed, and gave vent to a loud 
shrill bark. Some drunkard had thought fit 
to take refuge under the fence for the night. 
At that very time the old lady had just 
fallen asleep after a prolonged fit of “nervous 
agitation”; these fits of agitation always over- 
took her after too hearty a supper. The sud- 
den bark waked her up: her heart palpitated, 
and she felt faint. “Girls, girls!” she 
moaned. “Girls!” The terrified maids. ran 
into her bedroom. “Oh, oh, I am dying!” 
she said, flinging her arms about in her agi- 
tation. “Again, that dog again! ... Oh, send 
for the doctor. They mean to be the death 
of me.... The dog, the dog again! Oh!” 
And she let her head fall back, which always 
signified a swoon. They rushed for the doc- 
tor, that is, for the household pepens Har- 
iton. This doctor, whose whole qualification 
consisted in wearing soft-soled boots, knew 
how to feel the pulse delicately. He used to 


80 MUMU 


sleep fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, 
but the rest of the time he was always sigh- 
ing, and continually dosing the old lady with 
cherrybay drops. This doctor ran up at once, 
fumigated the room with burnt feathers, and 
when the old lady opened her eyes, promptly 
offered her a wineglass of the hallowed drops 
on a silver tray. The old lady took them, 
but began again at once in a tearful voice 
BaP: of the dog, of Gavrila, and of 
her fate, declaring that she was a poor old 
woman, and that every one had forsaken her, 
no one pitied her, every one wished her dead. 
Meanwhile the luckless Mumu had gone on 
barking, while Gerasim tried in vain to call 
her away from the fence. “There... there 
. again,” groaned the old lady, and: once 
more she turned up the whites of her eyes. 
The doctor whispered to a maid, she rushed 
into the outer-hall, and shook Stepan, he ran 
to wake Gavrila, Gavrila in a fury ordered 
the whole household to get up. 
Gerasim turned round, saw lights and shad- 
ows moving in the windows, and with an in- 
stinct of coming trouble in his heart, put 
Mumu under his arm, ran into his garret, and 
locked himself in. A few minutes later five 
men were banging at his door, but feeling 


MUMU 81 


the resistance of the bolt, they stopped. 
Gavrila ran up in a fearful state of mind, and 
ordered them all to wait there and watch till 
morning. Then he flew off himself to the 
maids’ quarter, and through an old com- 
panion, Liubov Liubimoyna, with whose as- 
sistance he used to steal tea, sugar, and 
other groceries and to falsify the accounts, 
sent word to the mistress that the dog had 
unhappily run back from somewhere, but 
that to-morrow she should be killed, and 
would the mistress be so gracious as not to 
be angry and to overlook it. The old lady 
would probably not have been so soon ap- 
peased, but the doctor had in his haste given 
her fully forty drops instead of twelve. The 
strong dose of narcotic acted; in a quarter 
of an hour the old lady was in a sound and 
peaceful sleep; while Gerasim was lying with 
a white face on his bed, holding Mumu’s 
mouth tightly shut. 

Next morning the lady woke up rather late. 
Gavrila was waiting till she should be awake, 
to give the order for a final assault on 
Gerasim’s stronghold, while he prepared him- 
self to face a fearful storm. But the storm 
did not come off. The old lady lay in bed 


82 MUMU 


and sent for the eldest of her dependent 
companions. 

“Liubov Liubimovna,” she began in a sub- 
dued weak voice—she was fond of playing 
the part of an oppressed and forsaken vic- 
tim; needless to say, every one in the house 
was made extremely uncomfortable at such 
times—“Liubov Liubimovna, you see my posi- 
tion; go, my love, to Gavrila Andreitch, and 
talk to him a little. Can he really prize some 
wretched cur above the repose—the very life 
—of his mistress? I could not bear to think 
so,” she added, with an expression of deep 
feeling. “Go, my love; be so good as to go 
to Gavrila Andreitch for me.” 

Liubov Liubimovna went to Gavrila’s room. 
What conversation passed between them is 
not known, but a short time after, a whole 
crowd of people was moving across the yard 
in the direction of Gerasim’s garret. Gavrila 
walked in front, holding his cap on with his 
hand, though there was no wind. The foot- 
men and cooks were close behind him; Uncle 
Tail was looking out of a window, giving in- 
structions, that is to say, simply waving his 
hands. At the rear there was a crowd of 
small boys skipping and hopping along; half 
of them were eutsiders who had run up. On 


MUMU 83 


the narrow staircase leading to the garret 
sat one guard; at the door were standing two 
more with sticks. They began to mount the 
stairs, which they entirely blocked up. Ga- 
vrila went up to the door, knocked with his 
fist, shouting, “Open the door!” 

A stifled bark was audible, but there was 
no answer. 

“Open the door, I tell you,” he repeated. 

“But, Gavrila Andreitch,” Stepan observed 
from below, “he’s deaf, you know—he doesn’t 
hear.” 

They all laughed. 

“What are we to do?” Gavrila rejoined 
from above. 

“Why, there’s a hole there in the door,” 
answered Stepan, “so you shake the stick in 
there.” 

Gavrila bent down. 

“He’s stuffed it up with a coat or some- 
thing.” 

“Well, you just push the coat in.” 

At this moment a smothered bark was 
heard again. 

“See, see—she speaks for herself,” was re- 
marked in the crowd, and again they laughed. 

Gayrila scratched his ear. 


84 MUMU 


“No, mate,” he responded at last, “you can 
poke the coat in yourself, if you like.” 

SAll right,, let me.” 4% 

And Stepan scrambled up, took the stick, 
pushed in the coat, and began waving the 
stick about in the opening, saying, “Come out, 
come out!” as he did so. He was still wav- 
ing the stick, when suddenly the door of 
the garret was flung open; all the crowd flew 
pell-mell down the stairs instantly, Gavrila 
first of all. Uncle Tail locked the window. 

“Come, come, come,” shouted Gavrila from 
the yard, “mind what yow’re about.” 

Gerasim stood without stirring in his door- 
way. The crowd gathered at the foot of the 
stairs. Gerasim, with his arms akimbo, looked 
down at all these poor creatures in German 
coats; in his red peasant’s shirt he looked 
like a giant before them. Gavrila took a 
step forward. 

“Mind, mate,” said he, “don’t be insolent.” 

And he began to explain to him by signs 
that the mistress insists on having his dog; 
that he must hand it over at once, or it would 
be the worse for him. 

Gerasim looked at him, pointed to the dog, 
made a motion with his hand round his neck, 
as though he were pulling a noose tight, and 


MUMU 785 


glanced with a face of inquiry at the steward. 

“Yes, yes,’ the latter assented, nodding; 
“ves, just so.” 

Gerasim dropped his eyes, then all of a 
sudden roused himself and pointed to Mumu, 
who was all the while standing beside him, in- 
nocently wagging her tail and pricking up 
her ears inquisitively. Then he repeated the 
strangling action round his neck and signifi- 
cantly struck himself on the breast, as though 
announcing he would take upon himself the 
task of killing Mumu. 

“But you'll deceive us,” Gavrila waved back 
in response. 

Gerasim looked at him, smiled scornfully, 
struck himself again on the breast, and 
slammed-to the door. 

They all looked at one another in silence. 

“What does that mean?” Gavrila began. 
“He’s locked himself in.” 

“Let him be, Gavrila Andreitch,” Stepan 
advised, “he'll do it if he’s promised. He’s 
like that, you know....If he makes a 
promise, it’s a certain thing. He’s not like 
us others in that. The truth’s the truth with 
him. Yes, indeed.” 

“Yes,” they all repeated, nodding their 
heads, “yes—that’s so—yes.” 


86 MUMU 


Uncle Tail opened his window, and he too 
said, “Yes.” 

“Well, may be, we shall see,” responded 
Gavrila; “any way, we won't take off the 
guard. Here you, Eroshka!” he added, ad- 
dressing a poor fellow in a yellow nankeen 
coat, who considered himself to be a gar- 
dener, “what have you to do? ‘Take a stick 
and sit here, and if anything happens, run 
to me at once!” 

Eroshka took a stick, and sat down on the 
bottom stair. The crowd dispersed, all ex- 
cept. a few inquisitive small boys, while Ga- 
vrila went home and sent word through Liu- 
bov Liubimovna to the mistress, that every- 
thing had been done, while he sent a postillion 
for a policeman in case of need. The old 
lady tied a knot in her handkerchief, sprink- 
led some eau-de-Cologne on it, sniffed at it, 
end rubbed her temples with it, drank some 
tea, and, being still under the influence of the 
cherrybay drops, fell asleep again. 

An hour after all this hubbub the garret 
doco~ opened, and Gerasim showed himself. 
He had on his best coat; he was leading 
Mumu by a string. Eroshka moved aside and 
let him pass. Gerasim went to the gates. All 
the small boys in the yard stared at him in 


MUMU 87 
silence. He did not even turn round; he on!y 


put his cap on in the street. Gavrila sent 
the same Eroshka to follow him and keep 
watch on him as a spy. Eroshka, seeing from . 
a distance that he had gone into a cookshop 
with his dog, waited for him to come out 
again. 

Gerasim was well known at the cookshop, 
and his signs were understood. He asked for 
cabbage soup with meat in it, and sat down 
with his arms on the table. Mumu stood 
beside his chair, looking calmly at him with 
her intelligent eyes. Her coat was glossy; 
one could see she had just been combed down. 
They brought Gerasim the soup. He crum- 
bled some bread into it, cut the meat up 
small, and put the plate on the ground. 
Mumu began eating in her usual refined way, 
her little muzzle daintily held so as scarcely 
to touch her food. Gerasim gazed a long 
while at her; two big tears suddenly rolled 
from his eyes; one fell on the dog’s brow, the 
other into the soup. He shaded his face with 
his hand. Mumu ate up half the plateful, 
and came away from it, licking her lips. Ge- 
rasim got>-up, paid for the soup, and went 
out, followed by the rather perplexed glances 
of the waiter. Eroshka, seeing Gerasim, hid 


88 MUMU 


round a corner, and letting him get in front, 
followed him again. 

Gerasim walked without haste, still hold- 
ing Mumu by a string. When he got to the 
corner of the street, he stood still as though 
reflecting, and suddenly set off with rapid 
steps to the Crimean Ford. On the way he 
went into the yard of a house, where a lodge 
was being built, and carried away two bricks 
under his arm. At the Crimean Ford, he 
turned along the bank, went to a place where 
there were two little rowing-boats fastened 
to stakes (he had noticed them there before), 
and jumped into one of them with Mumu. 
A lame old man came out of a shed in the 
corner of a kitchen-garden and shouted after 
him; but Gerasim only nodded, and began 
rowing so vigorously, though against stream, 
that in an instant he had darted two hundred 
yards away. The old man stood for a while, 
scratched his back first with the left and then 
with the right hand, and went back hobbling 
to the shed. 

Gerasim rowed on and on. Moscow was 
soon left behind. Meadows stretched each 
side of the bank, market gardens, fields, and 
copses; peasants’ huts began to make their 
appearance. There was the fragrance of ‘the 


MUMU 89 


country. He threw down his oars, bent his 
head down to Mumu, who was sitting facing 
him on a dry cross seat—the bottom of the 
boat was full of water—and stayed motion- 
less, his mighty hands clasped upon her back, 
while the boat was graduaily carried back by 
‘the current towards the town. At last Ge- 
rasim drew himself up hurriedly, with a sort 
of sick anger in his face, he tied up the bricks 
he had taken with string, made a running 
noose, put it round Mumu’s neck, lifted her 
up over the river, and for the last time 
looked at her. ... She watched him confid- 
ingly and without any fear, faintly wagging 
her tail. He turned away, frowned, and 
wrung his hands. ... Gerasim heard noth- 
ing, neither the quick shrill whine of Mumu 
as she fell, nor the heavy splash of the water; 
for him the noisiest day was soundless and 
silent as even the stillest night is not silent 
to us. When he opened his eyes again, little 
wavelets were hurrying over the river, chas- 
ing one another; as before they broke against 
the boat’s side, and only far away behind 
wide circles moved widening to the bank. 

Directly Gerasim had vanished from Frosh- 
ka’s sight, the Jatter returned home and re- 
ported what he had seen. 


90 MUMU 


“Well, then,” observed Stepan, “he'll drown 
her. Now we can feel easy about it. If he 
once promises a thing... .” 

No one saw Gerasim during the day. He 
did not have dinner at home. Evening came 
on; they were all gathered together to sup- 
per, except him. 

“What a strange creature that Gerasim 
is!” piped a fat laundrymaid; “fancy, upset- 
ting himself like that over a dog.... Upon 
my word!” 

“But Gerasim has been here,” Stepan cried 
all at once, scraping up his porridge with a 
spoon. 

“How? when?” 

“Why, a couple of hours ago. Yes, indeed! 
I ran against him at the gate; he was going 
out again from here; he was coming out of 
the yard. I tried to ask him about his dog, 
but he wasn’t in the best of humours, I could 
see. Well, he gave me a shove; I suppose he 
only meant to put me out of his way, as if 
he’d say, ‘Let me go, do!’ but he fetched me 
such a crack on my neck, so seriously, that— 
oh! oh!’ And Stepan, who could not help 
laughing, shrugged up and rubbed the back of 
his head. “Yes,” he added; “he has got a 


MOMU 91 


fist; it’s something like a fist, there’s no de- 
nying that!” 

They all laughed at Stepan, and after sup- 
per they separated to go to bed. 

Meanwhile, at that very time, a gigantic 
figure with a bag on his shoulders and a stick 
in his hand, was eagerly and _ persistently 
stepping out along the T highroad. It 
was Gerasim. He was hurrying on without 
looking round; hurrying homewards, to his 
own village, to his own country. After 
drowning poor Mumu, he had run back to 
his garret, hurriedly packed a few things 
together in an old horsecloth, tied it up in a 
bundle, tossed it on his shoulder, and so was 
ready. He had noticed the road carefully 
when he was brought to Moscow; the village 
his mistress had taken him from lay only 
about twenty miles off the highroad. He 
walked along it with a sort of invincible pur- 
pose, a desperate and at the same time joyous 
determination. He walked, his shoulders 
thrown back and his chest expanded; his eyes 
were fixed greedily straight before him. He 
eine as though his old mother were wait- 

for him at home, as though she were 
a ling him to her after long wanderings in 
strange parts, among strangers. The summer 





92 MUMU 


night, that was just drawing in, was still 
and warm; on one side, where the sun had 
set, the horizon was still light and faintly 
flushed with the last glow of the vanished 
day; on the other side a blue-grey twilight 
had already risen up. The night was coming 
up from that quarter. Quails were in hun- 
dreds around; corncrakes were calling to one 
another in the thickets. ... Gerasim could 
not hear them; he could not hear the delicate 
night-whispering of the trees, by which his 
strong legs carried him, but he smelt the fa- 
miliar scent of the ripening rye, which was 
wafted from the dark fields; he felt the wind, 
flying to meet him—the wind from home— 
beat caressingly upon his face, and play with 
his hair and his beard. He saw before him 
the whitening road homewards, straight as an 
arrow. He saw in the sky stars innumerable, 
lighting up his way, and stepped out, strong 
and bold as a lion, so that when the rising 
sun shed its moist rosy light upon the still 
fresh and unwearied traveller, already thirty 
miles lay between him and Moscow. 

In a couple of days he was at home, in his 
little hut, to the great astonishment of the 
soldier’s wife who had been put in there. 
After praying before the holy pictures, he 


MUMU J3 


set off at once to the village elder. ‘ihe vil- 
lage elder was at first surprised; but the hay- 
cutting had just begun; Gerasim was a first- 
rate mower, and they put a scythe into his 
hand on the spot, and he went to mow in his 
ola way, mowing so that the peasants were 
fairly astounded as they watched his wide 
sweeping strokes and the heaps he raked to- 
gether. ... 

In Moscow the day after Gerasim’s flight 
they missed him. They went to his garret, 
rummaged about in it, and spoke to Gavrila. 
He came, looked, shrugged his shoulders, and 
decided that the dumb man had either run 
away or had drowned himself with his stupid 
wk They gave information tc the police, 

informed the lady. The old lady was 
furious, burst into tears, gave orders that he 
was to be found whatever happened, declared 
she had never ordered the deg to be de- 
stroyed, and, in fact, gave Gavrila such a 
rating that he could do nothing all day but 
shake his head and murmur, “Well!” until 
Uncle Tail checked him at last, sympathetical- 
ly echoing “We-ell!” At last the news came 
from the country of Gerasim’s being there. 
The old lady was somewhat pacified; at first 
“she issued a mandate for him to be brought 


94 MUMU 


back without delay to Moscow; afterwards, 
however, she declared that such an ungrateful 
creature was absolutely of no use to her. 
Soon after this she died herself; and her - 
heirs had no thought to spare for Gerasim; 
they let their mother’s other servants redeem 
their freedom on payment of an annual rent. 
And Gerasim is living still, a lonely man in | 
his lonely hut; he is strong and healthy as 
before, and does the work of four men as be- 
fore, and as before is serious and steady. 
But his neighbours have observed that ever 
since his return from Moscow he has quite 
given up the society of women; he will not 
even look at them, and does not keep even a 
single dog. “It’s his good luck, though,” the 
peasants reason; “that he can get on without 
female folk; and as for a dog—what need has 
he of a dog? you wouldn’t get a thief to go 
into his yard for any money!” Such is the 
fame of the dumb man’s Titanic strength. 


THE END 











gD 


: 
‘ 
’ 


AE: 


SSS SS te 


